Battery Life Testiing

Battery Life

With the promise of a bigger battery thanks to the redesign of the iPhone 4, we're hoping that battery life would be good, as Apple has said it is much better than the iPhone 3GS (which lasted just 5 hours 50 minutes in our last review in our usual harsh testing). Using our standard battery life test, we played back in a continuous loop a test video encoded at 240 x 320 pixels resolution under the following conditions: 100% screen brightness and volume and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth active, with push email or data being pulled from the network at regular intervals. The iPhone 4 was then pitted against its current alternatives: the Samsung Galaxy S, the HTC Desire, the Motorola MIlestone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and the Google Nexus One.

Specs / Device

Apple iPhone 4

Samsung Galaxy S

HTC Desire

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Google Nexus One

Motorola Milestone

Connectivity

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n

Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n

Bluetooth 3.0 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Bluetooth 2.1 + A2DP

HSDPA

GPS with A-GPS

Dimensions

115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3mm

122.4 x 64.2 x 9.9mm

119.8 x 60 x 11.9 mm

119 x 63 x 13mm

119 x 59.8 x 11.5 mm

116 x 60.9 x 10.9 mm

Weight

137g

118g

135g

135g

130g

160g

Screen size

3.5-inch, 960 x 640 pixels

4.0-inch, 800 x 480 pixels

3.7-inch, 800 x 480 pixels

4.0-inch, 854 x 480 pixels

3.7-inch, 800 x 480 pixels

3.7-inch, 480 x 854 pixels

Battery

Information not available

1500 mAh

1400 mAh

1500 mAh

1400 mAh

1390 mAh

The results are quite impressive. The iPhone 4 does well here with a battery life of 443 minutes (or 7 hours 23 minutes). This beats its nearest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S by around 25 minutes. Having a bigger battery thanks to a redesign and the use of a new processor that's supposed to be power efficient does help a lot with getting a longer lasting smartphone. Mind you, this is just battery life performance when tested in this harsh usage, so it's definitely going to last a lot longer in normal usage with more calls, texting and web usage.